Multi-ensemble projection of future coastal climate change

Abstract

The comprehensive understanding of future global coastal and ocean climate change due to green house effects will be required for impact assessment, mitigation and adaptation strategies of beach morphology, breakwater design in coastal and ocean engineering fields. This study analyzes future change of averaged coastal physics such as sea level rises, sea surface winds and ocean wave heights based on the climate data set combining IPCC(2007) results and the latest MRI high-resolution AGCM results. The ocean wave height is statistically projected using an empirical formula with sea surface wind by multi-model ensemble. The ensemble means and their standard deviations of coastal forces are presented for the year 2000 to 2100. The signal of future change of H s has stripped pattern in latitudinal direction and is clearer in the Southern Hemisphere than the Northern Hemisphere. The ratio of future change of Hs to the present climate is ± 15 % maximumly which is significant change than sea surface pressure and U10. The large uncertainty of projected Hs can be observed around the Equator area and the Antarctic Ocean. It is found that the synoptic scale of atmospheric pressure distribution is important to estimate and to understand for the future change of SST, U10 and Hs.